There is some variety of gorse in flower all year, but the spring/summer flowering one is the more common and prolific I think. I think our bees are probably dozing a bit, or might be finding a bit of ivy still.

i think a beek hive might be a step too far as the plan is for an outdoor classroom/ food science resource for a primary school as well as a community orchard.

there is a new site option im looking into which would be perfect for a couple of hives as it is tucked away between 4 "owned" sites and has no "public" access.

the old hospital orchard on the fulford retail park has bees but that is also a low footfall site as although it has public access it is only visited by folk who know it is there and they are , mostly, fairly sensible.

on the CRP site i recon that plenty of suitable habitat provision and year round forage plants should give enough pollination cover as well as making a good wild bee refuge without being too intimidating or potentially dangeroos.

Another sunny and still day after frost and there's a very large amount of bees out today, almost like summer.

Today there's only a few on the gorse and most of the pollen going in seems to be a pale yellow. Possibly hazel pollen although most of the nearby hazel catkins are still tightly shut, a few are open so somewhere they could be a large patch.

As I went towards the trans-orchard bridge recently, I could hear the hum of dozens of bees on the winter-flowering honeysuckle from 20 yards away. I planted it a year ago on the bank of the stream and it's a very useful shrub in winter, quiet and unassuming for the rest of the year.

Now we've got some calm after some recent rough weather there's bees everywhere. On all the gorse all over our place, on all the snowdrops and there's a steady stream flowing back from the woodland. Looks more like late spring than late winter, time to get some supers ready.